The total offering of these “short selected” plumes in December 1911, was 689 ounces, and in February, 1912, it was 230 ounces.

Now with these enormous prices prevailing, is it any wonder that the egrets and herons are being relentlessly pursued to the uttermost ends of the earth?  I think that any man who really knows the habits of egrets and herons, and the total impossibility of any quantity of their shed feathers being picked up in a marketable state, must know in his heart that if the London and continental feather markets keep open a few years longer, every species that furnishes “short selected” plumes will be utterly exterminated from off the face of the earth.

Let the English people make no mistake about this, nor be fooled by any fairy tales of the feather trade about Venezuelan “garceros,” and vast quantities of valuable plumes picked off the bushes and out of the mud.  Those carefully concocted egret-farm stories make lovely reading, but the reader who examines the evidence will soon decide the extent of their truthfulness.  I think that they contain not even ten per cent of truth; and I shall not rest until the stories of Leon Laglaize and Mayeul Grisol have been put to the test in the regions where they originated.

A few plumes may be picked out of the jungle, yes; but as for any commercial quantity, it is at present beyond belief.  Besides, we have direct, eye-witness testimony to the contrary.

It must not be inferred that the friends of birds in England have been idle or silent in the presence of the London feather trade.  On the contrary, the Royal Society for the Protection of Wild Birds and Mr. James Buckland have so strongly attacked the feather industry that the London Chamber of Commerce has felt called upon to come to its rescue.  Mr. Buckland, on his own individual account, has done yeoman service to the cause, and his devotion to the birds, and his tireless energy, are both almost beyond the reach of praise in words.  At the last moment before going to press I learn that the birds’-plumage bill has achieved the triumph of a “first reading” in Parliament, which looks as if success is at last in sight.  The powerful pamphlet that he has written, published and circulated at his own expense, entitled “Pros and Cons of the Plumage Bill,” is a splendid effort.  What a pity it is that more individuals are not similarly inspired to make independent effort in the protection cause!  But, strange to say, few indeed are the men who have either the nerve or the ability to “go it alone.”

On the introduction in Parliament of the bill to save the birds from the feather trade, it was opposed (through the efforts of the Chamber of Commerce), on the ground that if any bill against the sale of plumes should pass, and plumes could not be sold, the London business in wild-bird skins and feathers “would immediately be transferred to the continent!”

In the face of that devastating and altogether horrible prospect, and because the London feather dealers “need the money,” the bill was at first defeated—­to the great joy of the Chamber of Commerce and Mr. Downham; but the cause of birds will win in the end, because it is Right.